Anselmo Lorenzo

Anselmo Lorenzo Asperilla (21 April 1841 – 30 November 1914) was a Spanish anarchist activist and writer. He is known for his leading role in the early stages of the Spanish anarchist movement, for which he became known as "the grandfather of Spanish anarchism".

Lorenzo was first exposed to radical politics in the 1860s, when he was introduced to republicanism and federalism. Following the Glorious Revolution of 1868, he became a founding member of the Spanish Regional Federation of the International Workingmen's Association (FRE-AIT) and was elected to its federal council at the 1870 Barcelona Workers' Congress. He was at the centre of a split between the anarchist and Marxist factions of the AIT, which culminated in him resigning as the organisation's general secretary. He then established a number of clandestine cells of the AIT in Andalusia, which became the nuclei for revolutionary activity during the Cantonal Revolution. After the suppression of the revolution, he came into conflict with the AIT's moderate faction of syndicalists, who forced him out of the organisation before reorganising it into the Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region (FTRE).

During the 1880s, Lorenzo turned to writing and became an exponent of the theory of anarchism without adjectives, which advocated for an end to political infighting in the anarchist movement. In 1894, he launched his own newspaper, ''La Ciencia Social'', but it was shut down during the Montjuïc trials and he fled into exile. Following the Spanish defeat in the Spanish-American War, Lorenzo called for anarchists to adopt a new strategy and formulated the tendency of anarcho-syndicalism. He also became involved in the Barcelona Modern School and observed the Tragic Week uprising. In 1910, Lorenzo participated in the foundation of the National Confederation of Labour (CNT), which went on to become the predominant anarchist organisation in Spain. He died following the outbreak of World War I. Provided by Wikipedia